By Matthew Meiners

 

I wrote on March 10th that I longed for my representative in Congress to support the calls by some of his colleagues in the House of Representatives for the commencement of impeachment proceedings against the President.

 

In the intervening week, however, I have noticed a worrying tendency.  It seems that Democrats are no more interested in a dispassionate and thorough impeachment investigation than are their counterparts “across the aisle.”  The extremities of both parties have seized on the word “impeachment” to rally their base, but few seem genuinely interested in actually looking into the option, one way or another.

 

So here’s what I propose:  Let’s cool our jets for a second.  All of us.  Let’s take inflammatory words like “Impeachment” and “Censure” off the table for the time being, because they seem to be getting us nowhere fast, and focus on the second most important job of the Congress of the United States of America - oversight.

 

We hear this word thrown around a lot.  Many congressional committees have the word “oversight” in there very names.  Democrats recently have been seen to jump and holler and scream about the lack of congressional “oversight.”  But what is this “oversight?”

 

In Article One, Section One of the Constitution of the United States of America, Congress (defined as a Senate and a House of Representatives) is vested with “all legislative powers.”  This power is granted to no other branch.

 

What this means is that Congress, through the rules laid out in Article One, passes all the laws.  But what happens then?  So a new law is passed.  Who cares?  How does Congress make its will stick?

 

Enter the Executive Branch.  As the name suggests, this branch is charged with making sure that the laws that Congress has passed are executed faithfully.  Executing the laws faithfully means that the laws of Congress are not subject to interpretation by the Executive (i.e. the President) but must be implemented, in letter and spirit, as they were passed by the peoples representatives and senators.  So now we run into a dilemma:  what happens in the event that a sitting President doesn’t know what congress meant, or incorrectly applies or interprets a law?  Or what if a President willfully misinterprets an act of Congress?  Or what if, as has happened, the President assumes legislative powers that are not his by attaching “signing statements?”  What then?

 

Well, in such a case, as logic would suggest, he would either ask the advice of Congress, or Congress would be duty bound to proactively guide him in the execution of their will.  Being very busy, and having absolute control over their own rules, a power granted by the Constitution, the Senate and House would naturally set up committees to ensure that their will could be easily and efficiently communicated.  These committees could then investigate misinterpretations or misapplications of their intentions and recommend remedies to the Executive or to the Congress as a whole.

 

This, then, is the process we know as “oversight.”  The peoples representatives and the senators literally looking over the shoulder of the President to make sure he’s executing the laws as they were passed.

 

This same process takes place, by the way, in the relationship between the Legislative and Judicial branches, though the details are slightly different because the Judiciary is charged with the resolution of disputes arising out of the laws passed by Congress, not with their actual execution.

 

Now stick with me here.

 

 

Only on the completion of such an investigation (and remember, it can be undertaken in secret) can there be a real debate on the merits and dangers of such punitive measures as censure or impeachment of a sitting President.  If he broke the law, punitive measures are the only option, since the Constitution prohibits the passage of any “after the fact” laws that could retroactively make the program legal.  If he did not break the law, the issue can be laid to rest, and the partisan wounds can heal, their scabs to be picked by future events.

 

 

What’s say we ask them to do their jobs...  There’d be a novelty to behold!

 

:-)